Questions about La Vie's enigmatic subject and composition have prompted the art historian John Richardson to observe that the Picasso masterpiece "has given rise to more mystification that any other early work by the artist." Curatorial research assistant Galina Olmsted will discuss the changes made to the canvas during the course of its tumultuous production and will explore the significance of its final composition in light of Picasso's early interest in bohemian otherness and the cult of suicide in early modern art and literature, and the broader theme of fatal women in modern art.